Retiming Traffic Signals Can Produce High Return On Investment

I have been thinking about ways to change traffic signal timing in order to improve safety. While I see the value in making changes to traffic signal timing, I would need to work with a traffic engineer to actually implement my ideas. Due to how retiming traffic signals can produce a high return on investment, I am surprised that I have not blogged about this topic before. Since motorists almost hit me daily when I am walking through a Highway 213 intersection near my home, I should contact the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) about programming Leading Pedestrian Intervals (LPI) within the signal timing of this intersection.

What is a Leading Pedestrian Interval?

The below graphics from this page in the Urban Street Design Guide, which is produced by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), show what an LPI is and how it improves safety. Yes, I realize that motorists would be forced to wait for pedestrians to cross the intersection. Legally, motorists are already supposed to yield to pedestrians. While motorists may not support adding an LPI because many motorists are impatient, I hope they see the value of improving intersection safety.

LPIs have been shown to reduce pedestrian-vehicle collisions as much as 60% at treated intersections.

NACTO

Source: NACTO

What is Transit Signal Priority?

Due to how Transit Signal Priority (TSP) has been proven to reduce traffic congestion, I believe this is beneficial to all road users. The below graphic, which can be found here, from the Chicago region’s Regional Transportation Authority shows what TSP is and its benefits. While the Portland region does not have a cool infographic like the Chicago region, I am still excited about Portland’s Rose Lane Project. As someone who works in Clackamas County, which is south of the main area of Portland (a small section of Portland extends into Clackamas County), I wish the Rose Lane Project did not end at Portland’s city boundary. My main concern is how the jurisdictional transfer of 82nd Avenue from ODOT only includes Portland’s section of 82nd Avenue. Clackamas County’s section of 82nd Avenue is still owned by ODOT, which means that ODOT has to agree to any changes.

Source: https://www.rtachicago.org/plans-programs/programs-and-projects/transit-signal-priority

One element missing from the RTA graphic is a bus-only lane. Thankfully, NACTO includes bus-only lanes on this page about Active Transit Signal Priority within the Transit Street Design Guide. In case you are wondering, painted bus-only lanes are not good enough to create world-class Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). I refer to painted bus-only lanes as BRT-lite mostly because single-occupancy vehicles often end up in painted bus-only lanes. World-class BRT requires physical separation from single-occupancy vehicles. I recommend reading about world-class BRT in other countries.

Source: NACTO

Bike Signal Countdown Timer

While few people bike where I live, I still want to include my wish for bike signal countdown timers in Oregon City. As I wrote in this 2015 post, Portland has one wacht signal (wacht is Dutch for “wait”).

Next Blog Post

The topic of my next blog post is a surprise. Since I usually go on a vacation during the summer, could the surprise be about a future vacation?

Ray’s Crash Course in Respectability Politics

The power of social media, especially Facebook, helped me learn about respectability politics. I had never heard of respectability politics before today. As my below Facebook post shows, I thought I was helping to improve bike advocacy efforts by policing badly behaved cyclists.

For example, I saw a cyclist go through every stoplight on Fairfax Drive in Arlington, VA last Wednesday during afternoon rush hour. Since I’m tired of hearing well behaved cyclists and motorists tell me how badly behaved cyclists are ruining the image of all cyclists, I tried to chase down the badly behaved cyclist and tell him to stop breaking the law.

While I wasn’t able to catch up with the badly behaved cyclist, I’m thankful I posted this experience on social media. My friends were able to educate me about respectability politics and why it doesn’t work. Even though I was convinced I was doing the right thing by policing badly behaved cyclists, I’m thankful my friends stuck to their reasoning and waited patiently for me to show them that I understood their viewpoint. It took a few days for me to stop arguing my viewpoint and finally understand their viewpoint. Now I can share their reasoning with others that may not fully understand respectability politics.

In case you haven’t heard of it before, respectability politics “refers to attempts by marginalized groups to police their own members and show their social values as being continuous, and compatible, with mainstream values rather than challenging the mainstream for what they see as its failure to accept difference.” Instead of policing cyclists, my friends suggested I encourage people to do the right thing. As Zvi Leve, who is an experienced cyclist living in Montreal, wrote, “I find that positive reinforcement is a far more effective strategy to encourage people to ‘do the right thing’.” Zvi also shared the following CityLab article, which discusses Sweden’s Vision Zero approach to education and enforcement.

Source: CityLab

Speaking of Vision Zero, I’m currently working with GGWash‘s staff to publish my next blog post about why Sustainable Safety, which is the Dutch alternative to Vision Zero, is more effective than Vision Zero.

Cheapest Way to Bring Dutch Bike Infrastructure to the US

I usually write factual posts and not opinion posts so I want to add a disclaimer that this post is an opinion post. I’m open to criticism so feel free to share your criticism. I’d especially enjoy reading criticism if you feel there is a cheaper way to bring Dutch bike infrastructure to the US.

The idea for this post came about when I got my new 2017 Breezer Uptown 8 LS (LS stands for low step) on April 1. Before getting my new bike, I was riding Capital Bikeshare for all bike trips except shopping and bike touring (long-distance) trips. As the below photo shows, I was riding my road bike to shop and for bike touring. While I always find it stressful to mount and dismount my road bike, the two stuff panniers made it even more challenging to swing my leg around the back of my seat when mounting and dismounting my bike.

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Due to this mounting and dismounting challenge, I’m loving the step thru design of my new bike. I no longer have to stress about swinging my leg around the back of the seat so I feel much more relaxed when biking!

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The relaxed feeling is why I think my step thru bike, which is similar to a Dutch bike, is the cheapest way to bring Dutch bike infrastructure to the US. My step thru bike feels like I’m riding in the Netherlands, which I have done through two study abroad trips, without spending millions on building protected bike lanes. I still support protected bike lanes, but realize they are expensive to build. I wanted to share a cheap way to feel relaxed when biking without waiting for protected bike lanes to be built. I never felt comfortable on my road bike so I’m thankful I decided to buy my step thru bike. While Capital Bikeshare feels comfortable, it doesn’t go everyone I want to go yet. I wanted a new bike that felt as comfortable as a Capital Bikeshare bike so I got my new step thru bike.

As an added bonus, several women, who I have never met before, told me that my step thru bike looks cute and they wanted to find a similar bike. I’m not sure whether this is because they think step thru bikes are supposed to be only for women or because they think my bike is actually cute. I believe few Americans know that Dutch bikes are unisex and step thru so I want to point out that I see my step thru bike as a unisex bike and not as a women’s bike. Yes, the American manufacturer labels my bike as a women’s bike, but the bike would likely be labeled as unisex in the Netherlands.

Since I’m single, have been dating, and would love to go on a bike ride with my girlfriend, it would be cool if I can use my step thru bike to attract women who find my bike cute. The only men that have said anything about my bike are the bike shop mechanics that built my bike. I want to clarify that the main reason why I purchased my new step thru bike is because I can easily step thru the bike. I wasn’t thinking about attracting women with my bike before I purchased it, so this is an added bonus. Since American women bike less than American men, I’d love if my bike can encourage more women to bike because they find my bike cute and they end up buying a similar bike.

Tim Kelley shared this video with me and it relates to the road bike mounting challenges I have experience. I found the video to be useful and funny.

Neighborhood Greenways Are Cool, But Oasis Greenways Are Awesome!

I submitted my contributor form to Greater Greater Washington (GGWash) today and GGWash’s staff gave me the green light, so my first blog post should be published on GGWash sometime next week. Since GGWash’s staff asked me to write differently than I write on my personal blog, I wanted to share the version I wrote before GGWash’s staff asked me to shorten my blog post and make it less technical. As I wrote in this post, I knew I would have less control over my writing when I started posting on other blogs. I’ll share my GGWash post after it is published, but as a teaser I’m sharing my longer and more technical version below.

Update: here is my first GGWash post!

A bike boulevard (DC region refers to neighborhood greenway as bike boulevard) is an outdated idea currently being used by many US cities to improve safety for all street users. An oasis greenway is a new approach that represents the future of safe street design. An oasis greenway is a long series of interconnected low-speed, low-volume, shared-space, vegetated linear parks created from an assembly of residential streets. As the below video shows, an oasis greenway is based on the Dutch woonerf.

According to Tom Bertulis’ 167-page thesis, Oasis Greenways: A New Model of Urban Park and Bikeway within Constrained Street Rights-of-Way, the nine elements that any given facility must include to be called an oasis greenway are the following:

1. Extremely low traffic volumes, including traffic diversion as needed. While many cities in the US are focused on traffic diversion on a street by street basis, several cities in the Netherlands are focused on traffic diversion on a neighborhood or citywide basis. Houten, Netherlands, which is a suburb of Utrecht, has implemented a citywide traffic diversion plan.
   

   Houten’s traffic diversion map. Source: ITDP

   As the below map shows, motorists are routed from their neighborhood road (green) onto a connector road (brown) that directs them to the outer ring road (yellow). Motorists must drive all the way around Houten until they reach another connector road that connects them to their destination. Since cyclists and pedestrians can travel through the traffic diverters, they can travel quicker than motorists through Houten.

   

   Neighborhood level of Houten’s traffic diversion map

   Watch this video to learn more about Houten.

   Since Houten was originally designed with traffic diversion, it is a unique city because it didn’t need to be retrofitted. Most, if not all, US cities will have to retrofitted with traffic diversion so here is a neighborhood retrofit example from Utrecht, Netherlands. US cities should be able to relate to this retrofit example much easier than the approach that Houten took with its citywide traffic diversion plan.

   

   Source: Bicycle Dutch

   While no US city has implemented a citywide nor neighborhood network of traffic diverters, Portland, OR has several traffic diverters. Here is a diagonal traffic diverter in northeast Portland.

   

   Diagonal traffic diverter at NE Tillamook St and 16th Ave. Photo: Ray Atkinson

   

   Diagonal traffic diverter at NE Tillamook St and 16th Ave

2. Extremely low traffic speeds, including traffic calming as needed. Below is a bayonet traffic calmer in Delftweg, Netherlands. While the street is two-way, the bayonet forces motorists to take turns going through the bayonet. Cyclists have a two-way trail so they can avoid the bayonet.
   

   Delftweg’s bayonet traffic calmer. Photo: Ray Atkinson

3. Shared space, without sidewalks, with motorists sharing the space with pedestrians and cyclists, like a woonerf.
   

   Shared space on Bell Street in Seattle, WA

4. Oasis greenways must be continuous for at least several blocks and have connectivity through busy intersections.
   

   Portland neighborhood greenway crossing. Photo: Steven Vance

5. Terminal vista. They must make use of the “terminal vista effect,” where the line of sight straight down the street is partially obscured, usually by trees or an on-street parking chicane. The below woonerf in Delft, Netherlands shows the terminal vista effect.
   

   Woonerf in Delft, NL. Photo: Ray Atkinson

6. Parklike, which refers to using grasscrete as the default in areas that aren’t travel-ways for cyclists and pedestrians. The below photo from Haarlem, Netherlands shows a grasscrete street.
   

   Grasscrete street in Haarlem, NL. Photo: Dan Burden

7. Park and parking strip. They must have a wide area where on-street parking, parklets, trees, vegetation, and play areas are located.
   

   Rendering of park and parking strip. Rendering: Tom Bertulis’ thesis

8. Minimal parking footprint. They must minimize the parking footprint based on a parking needs analysis. Use the below illustration to compare parking footprint of a traditional street with parking footprint of an oasis greenway.
   

   Source: Tom Bertulis’ thesis

9. Small and large play areas. They must have both small and large play areas, with the small play areas referring to the Park & Parking Strip and the large play areas referring to Oasis Greenway sections with “ultra-low volumes” where the play area temporarily becomes the entire cross-section of the street, not too different from when hockey is played in the street.
   

   Street hockey. Photo: Jonathan Tavares

While no street in the US has been designed with all nine elements of an oasis greenway, a few cities have experimented with several elements of an oasis greenway so please don’t think that an oasis greenway can only be designed by the Dutch or Europeans. Would you like to see an oasis greenway constructed in your neighborhood? If yes, where? If no, why not?